Headed out with the usual suspects on saturday. 5 of us out and quite a taxing route as it felt like a headwind for 3/4 of the ride!
https://www.strava.com/activities/1411721049
I'd not ridden outside for 4-5 weeks (other than my commute) and it was quite interesting to see how the Zwift miles translated - I found myself strong on the flats and able to hit and hold threshold when climbing, but the rolling terrain was really where I had to fight to hold a wheel and really found it taxing. I was slightly under fuelled after only having a couple of pieces of toast and coffee for breakfast so really hit the wall within 10 miles of starting, soon after that we hit the wormsley golf course climb,
I paced the bottom (dropping back with Simon) before
powering up the middle (caught & passed Mark) and then finally
smashed the last drag (catching and then dropping Steve & Gordon). Quite chuffed as I seemed to have power on tap when I really thought I would struggle. My HR was high but at no point did I blow up, the threshold Zwift racing has really helped that part of my riding!
After a couple of nibbles of the food I was carrying I seemed to fare better, the latter half of the ride feeling much easier than the earlier. We still had some headwinds around but much of the time I was called to ease the pace on the front to keep us grouped together. Gordon had some rubbish luck getting a huge slice on the sidewall of his tyre which we finally managed to patch the 1" hole above the main tread with a tube patch (still in it's foil) wrapped in part of a latex glove, after around the 3rd attempt. Gordon's 4th puncture of the year (in only 200 miles). He's not enjoying road riding yet after coming from MTB and the punctures are not helping! Really rate Giant tyres even less now (didn't when I was riding them ~4 years ago).
If that happened now I'd be like a dropped jigsaw all over the road.
Really like that analogy! Made me lol
Though sometimes when you think you've made eye contact they still go for it.
Edited for you.
I do think as a regular cyclist you almost start to get a sixth sense type feeling of when someone is about to do something stupid.
Agreed, you can sometimes just tell those drivers by the gormless looks on their faces as they look directly at you and still pull out. They just seem blind to anything other than cars!
I don't want to have to go to small claims court to prove it (because I'd probably leave it and do what I should've done in the first place, pay triple and buy from a good shop in the first place)
You'd be surprised, many LBS' can get close to Halfords/Decathlon on price, usually with a better specced bike. They might not carry the stocks and generally have to order bikes in, certainly cheaper ones, but you'd get a better fit, better build and better servicing for similar money.
My misfortune may have been good luck in the end as there was a huge crash on the final straight resulting in many broken bikes, some broken bones and one poor guy apparently broke his back!
Disappointed to DNF my first race but also glad I didn't end up in the hospital.
Sounds like you had a lucky escape! Glad it went well enough (considering). Going to do more?
Most of the guys I know tend to say if you can survive the spring cat 3/4 crits you can survive anything.
Closed crits on a good surface are safe to some extent but it's just the inexperience, stupidity or foolishness of other riders most likely to cause you injury.
I did really enjoy the crit races I did but the risk/reward just isn't worth it.
Zwift race ftw instead
That's pretty much it, too many hopefuls all trying to dive for the non-existent gap in the apex of that final corner!
We should get an OCUK Zwift race team together
I managed to get a spare wheel and re-join the race. Technically I'd lost already due to being a lap behind but I wanted to keep riding for fun. I kept hanging in there until halfway through the final lap when my spare wheel decided to fall out of the dropouts and lock up. I must not have tightened the QR properly when rushing to swap the wheels!
I decided to pull out at that point and walk over to the finish line. 
